Wednesday, 16 May 2007

An absolute 'Yes' would be a bit too exaggerated as there are Search engine optimization firms, which are actually using 'white hat practices'.

However an absolute 'No' will be even more exaggerated. A few Australia SEO companies are real spammers, but a lot of them are not far from becoming spammers. Found Agency was not a spammer a year ago (not for Google), but the recent changes in Google algorithm turned them into spammers. The same could happen really shortly to a lot of Australian SEO companies...It is quite scary to see how many 'professional' SEO firms are using dodgy practices(grey practices) to promote themselves or even their clients. The scariest is that most of those people are speakers in SEO related events! I recently had a look at a couple of top ranked companies for the some popular terms such as 'search engine optimisation' or 'seo sydney' and I have been quite surprised!

If you consider that each Australian SEO firm is able to do a proper on-page optimisation ( not all of them are able to so!), then the most important factor that can influence their ranking is the number of links. Australian SEO firms understood this. They loves their links (a bit too much), they became links addicts! They dont care, where the links are coming from, they just want links! I have seen many top ranked SEO companies having links from random websites thanks to Visitors Counters (we know who is this one), from optimised link farms or just some 'half-dodgy' links 'SEO by' from the footer of their clients websites.All those links are from poor quality websites, which have nothing to do with the topic... It is scary! I have not seen many legitiamte links coming from search engine optimisation related content (except paid links).

Well this strategy is fair ( as long as it is work) but it won't make them stay very long at the top or even in the top 50 ranks of Google. To quote, Jeremy Bolt from Bruce Clay, and especailly the presentation he did at the CeBIT, a link building strategy needs real planning! It needs to consider the long-term and by long term I mean the possible changes of the Google Algorithm.Some will say it is impossible to anticipate Google changes, which is true. However the guidelines they give can give long term directions.

Those facts just prove one thing and I am not gonna have any friends after this: The Australian Search engine optimisation industry is not up to date with the best SEO practices. Even worst many firms are flirting at the edge of spamming. In that sense, I really agree with the anonymous speaker in The Age article quoted above. Most Aussie firms are still using practices that were used a couple of years ago. The industry is young, that is for sure, but many Australian Seo firms need to seriously lift up their game if they want to stay in the market.

Another useful thing for any person looking for a 'trusty and reliable' Search engine optimisation firm. Just check the links of the firm (In yahoo type: link:www.company.com.au) and see what you get. If you have a lot of links from sites that have nothing to do with SEO, you should maybe look for another one...

2
Comments:

Your right about other firms with bad morals and the sooner Google and the other major search engines clean them up the better it will be for everyone.

I just don't think anyone should lose site that Honest website promotion and spam are two very different things.

I don't know if your interested? but perhaps we could start an Australian seo contest, either a phrase or traffic or on-site earnings or to be totally different, each pick a charity and optimize there site for free. Might be a nice way to promote our services and help the community at the same time.

The idea of an Australian SEO contest is great, but I am pretty busy at the moment and therfore will have to decline your offer ffor the next 3 months... But lets not forget about it and lets plan it for September. I am pretty sure we could find more people and make that thing even bigger...